Lilly Wachowski says she's "kinda done" with the Matrix franchise, as director says he won't proceed without her blessing

Lilly Wachowski, who co-created "The Matrix" with her sister Lana more than a quarter-century ago, says she has no appetite left for the franchise that made her name — even as the filmmaker attached to a prospective fifth film says he refuses to move forward without the sisters' consent. Speaking on KCRW's film-industry program "The Business", hosted by Kim Masters, Wachowski said plainly: "Personally, I don't wanna play in that sandbox anymore. I'm kinda done."

The remarks, first reported by Deadline and confirmed by multiple outlets, mark the clearest public statement yet from either Wachowski sister on their relationship to a "Matrix 5" that Warner Bros. has had in development, on and off, since 2024.

What Wachowski said

Asked directly about the status of a fifth "Matrix" film, Wachowski told Masters that writer-director Drew Goddard — the filmmaker Warner Bros. brought on to write and direct the project — has told the studio and the sisters that he does not want to proceed without their sign-off. "There may be a thing that's happening with Drew Goddard, and he doesn't wanna go forward unless he gets our blessing," Wachowski said.

"Maybe we're going to stick our noses in a tiny bit and see how we feel and if we want to pass on our blessing to Drew or not. Could be something that's coming down the road, but still unknown."

That posture — declining to write or direct, while leaving open the possibility of an informal veto — is new. When Warner Bros. announced the project in April 2024, the studio said only that Lana Wachowski would serve as an executive producer; Lilly was not attached in any capacity. At the time, Warner Bros. Motion Pictures president of production Jesse Ehrman said Goddard "came to Warner Bros. with a new idea that we all believe would be an incredible way to continue the 'Matrix' world, by both honoring what Lana and Lilly began over 25 years ago and offering a unique perspective based on his own love of the series and characters," a framing first reported by Deadline's original story on the announcement. Neither Wachowski has publicly disclosed how far Goddard's script has progressed.

A franchise in corporate limbo

Wachowski's comments land as Warner Bros. Discovery's ownership itself is unresolved. The studio's parent agreed in February to be acquired by Paramount Skydance in a deal valued near $110 billion, and the transaction won shareholder approval in April. The Justice Department's antitrust division separately closed its review without objection in June, concluding in a formal statement that the merger was "not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers" — a determination the Antitrust Division published after an eight-month review of more than two million documents.

Federal clearance did not end the fight. A coalition of twelve state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, sued in July to block the deal, arguing the combined company would control roughly a third of both wide theatrical releases and basic cable programming; the Writers Guild of America joined the challenge on separate competition grounds. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order freezing the merger, and in late July the parties agreed to a stipulation — announced in a press release from the California Department of Justice — that keeps the deal frozen until a trial verdict or June 1, 2027, whichever comes first. Bonta said the case turns on a broader principle: "When too few corporations have too much power in markets central to American life, it makes things more expensive, and it makes things worse." A trial is now scheduled to begin March 2, 2027, and Paramount faces contractual penalties of roughly $7 million for every day past September 30 that the acquisition remains unclosed. None of that directly determines "Matrix 5," but it leaves the studio that would greenlight and finance the film under a cloud that could persist well into 2027.

Why the sisters stepped back

Wachowski's cooling on the franchise is consistent with a broader pivot she has described in recent months. She now runs Anarchists United, an artist-run nonprofit studio she co-founded to back low-budget genre projects outside the traditional financing system, structured loosely on the model of the original United Artists. In August, Wachowski told trade press that she could not get a major studio to finance "The Hunted," a roughly $10 million dystopian thriller she co-wrote with an all-transgender cast, despite what she described as a positive reception to the script. "People like it, but they really don't want to make it because it's got a wall-to-wall trans cast," she said, in comments reported by Variety and corroborated by the Deadline account of the same interview. Rather than wait, the project was staged as a live reading at a Los Angeles venue in August, produced through Anarchists United.

Read against that backdrop, Wachowski's Matrix comments look less like a single offhand remark and more like a statement of where her creative energy now sits: with an independent nonprofit outfit built to make room for material the major studios will not fund, rather than with the tentpole franchise that made her one of the most influential action filmmakers of her generation. Lilly and Lana Wachowski wrote and directed "The Matrix" (1999) and its two sequels together, along with "Cloud Atlas," "Speed Racer" and "Jupiter Ascending," and co-created the Netflix series "Sense8." Lana directed 2021's "The Matrix Resurrections" alone; Lilly has not directed a "Matrix" film since 2003's "The Matrix Revolutions."

Who is affected, and what happens next

For now, the practical consequence is limited: Goddard's script was already reported to be in progress, and nothing in Wachowski's remarks suggests Warner Bros. has paused development. But her comments confirm, for the first time from one of the sisters directly, that the studio's own stated intention — to make a fifth film "honoring what Lana and Lilly began" — currently depends on a blessing that has not been given and that Lilly Wachowski says she is in no hurry to grant.

• Warner Bros. has not set a release date, cast, or start of production for "Matrix 5."
• Lana Wachowski remains attached as an executive producer; Lilly Wachowski is not attached to the project in any capacity.
• Whether Warner Bros. Discovery itself will still be under the same ownership by the time a script is ready remains an open question tied to the March 2027 antitrust trial.

Representatives for Warner Bros. and for Goddard did not immediately respond to requests for comment reported alongside the original interview. Wachowski gave no timeline for when she and her sister might decide whether to grant or withhold their blessing.